Still
by xFickleFriend
Summary: :re is a place living in the past. Light Touken.


They came early enough that the pretty waitress was still running through her morning opening routine. The sky was dark, the lights flipped on, and the night drifting reluctantly into morning. Shirazu remembered how late it was when their group last stumbled into the rare find of a coffee shop and wondered just how many hours of sleep the young woman stored up a night. Her movements were soft and silent from within the store and the gray-tinged streets impossibly peaceful, looking towards the heralding light, warm through the windows, from the little cafe nestled quietly into the facade of Tokyo.

She glanced up, mildly surprised, to greet the bell and its patrons. He smiled discreetly, against his natural inclination, scared to wake the chairs and tables and books by the sleeping shelves under their light, warm cover of dust.

"You've brought friends," she greeted.

He blinked, happily surprised. "I didn't think you'd remember me."

Urie's listless eyes paused to regard him disbelievingly. He was too preoccupied with the unfamiliar surroundings to level a gaze of more than subdued condescension. Things seemed to fall to a hush past the threshold. He lost his roughness, Mutsuki grew calm, and even Urie felt quiet. Of course, Uriko was never talkative, but even when he did not speak, he was loud in his thoughts. Now he had taken off his headphones and the sound that streamed through was nothing more than white silence. It was as if they had taken a step into their past and everything grew still around them.

"Let me help you," he offered with an outstretched hand.

The waitress paused, but passed the sign to him with a small shrug. He stepped back outside to place the store's name at the side and selfishly close to the storefront. Mutsuki had left a seat beside him at the same table from before where the girl was closest.

"I see that white-haired gentleman isn't here today. You called him Sassan?"

Shirazu shrugged. "He has a meeting this morning. We're supposed to be joining him later on."

"The CCG sure has you all waking early," she spoke as she pulled out a clipboard from her apron pocket.

Mutsuki leaned around Shirazu to ask, "How did you know we worked for the CCG?"

She lowered the clipboard from her face and smiled, a small one, but different from the one she had worn before. "At first I thought it was strange because you were all so young. But you were wearing trench coats and carrying briefcases."

"A lot of people do though."

She shook her head. "No, you're unmistakable."

Urie replaced his headphones and scoffed, but Shirazu refused to be embarrassed.

"Well you sure remember a lot from one visit," he probed, cautious and hopeful.

"Do you see there? At the crossroads?" His eyes followed the direction she'd turned her head.

"There are dozens of coffee shops just a few blocks down. I've always felt that while you're here this is the only place that exists, but really there are quite of few other cafes around here."

She laughed at this, light and translucent.

"And so it's my job to remember everything." She spoke quietly now, as one does when sharing a secret between friends. And though it was meant to be welcoming, he felt like an intruder on someone else's memories.

There was an real and tangible distance between them, and he began to feel, no, began to understand that what he felt was a regret that he would never know what she saw in the other eye and the real reason why she laughed or smiled as if glad to be remembering something she had thought was lost forever. He would see and not understand. What did Sassan always say again? Like looking through a heat haze.

He always said things like that, like a poet, he thought. The words seemed easy enough to understand, but you could never describe them to someone else.

He watched her write smoothly and speak easily.

"And a cappuccino for Shirazu-san and black for Mutsuki-san, correct?"

"Mhm." Mutsuki agreed.

The pretty waitress went behind the counter and Mutsuki stood and made his way to the bookshelves. He scanned the names and stumbled upon a familiar title. Careful not to disturb the dust, he lifted a copy gently, as if a thief touching what did not belong to him and too scared to leave a trace. Shirazu watched as his eyes traveled the front cover and sounded out the words written on the back of the page.

"They belonged to a friend of mine."

All three of them jumped at the sound of her voice and Shirazu realized that Uriko had been watching too. She left Mutsuki with the books and placed their orders at the table.

He studied the book one more time before replacing it on the bookshelf as carefully as he had taken it. A thief indeed, placing it in the exact position it had originally been in, not neatly tucked in, but with a corner invitingly visible.

Mutsuki returned and sat again and watched her hand move up and down to place a cup before each of them, perhaps waiting for the right time to speak.

"We have a friend who has read The Trial too."

"Really?" She smiled. "Then maybe someone will finally come and read the books we have," she spoke with a laugh on her breath.

They drank their coffee and watched her behind the counter, and watched the tables, and chairs, and books on bookshelves, and watched each other as time slowed down, and ticked, second by second, on his watch, until he stood and told the time.

She walked out from behind the counters, said goodbye, and listened to the bell ring above their heads. And when they left, she saw the blue light sweeping through the streets, clearing a path from all directions, and she waited, for when they would all come home.

And when they left, maybe, he thought, the reason why everything was at peace there, was because that was where past intersected the present, and after a forever and eventuality, was waiting for a day when they finally reconciled.


End file.
